There are many great search-experts out there. We decided we wanted to give some extra attention to some of them. Therefore we will be interviewing some of these experts. During the entire summer you will be served with short interviews with influential people in the industry. You will be seeing interviews with the likes of Joost de Valk, Marcus Tandler, Chris Sherman, Mike Grehan and Danny Sullivan, and off course our bloggers! Be aware that some interviews will be published in the newsletter!

Today: she who travels the world and in the mean time runs a successful SEOMoz company: Gillian Muessig

1- Can you introduce yourself in one paragraph?

Hi, I’m Gillian Muessig, President and Co-Founder of SEOmoz. SEOmoz is the web’s most popular provider of Search Marketing tools, guides, and community. Our tools have been served more than 1 million times; the SEOmoz blog is read by nearly 20,000 people daily and our community is comprised of about 250,000 search marketers around the world.

2- What are you doing this summer?

I’m working! As the Corporate Evangelist for SEOmoz and the SEO Industry, I’ll be speaking at Hosting Con in Austin and SearchLabs Sao Paulo. I’m very excited to be headed to Brazil, where we have many members. The balance of the summer, I’ll be working in the wonderful new SEOmoz offices in Seattle and on the Oregon coast (they call that a working holiday).

3- What is the hottest subject in search at the moment, what should every SEO be looking into?

Everybody should be paying attention to the Power Triumvirate: Mobile – Local – Social. The web is becoming increasingly mobile and people want ads, specials, and deals delivered to their cell phones when and where they need them. Mobile device commerce is becoming the ‘next big thing'; it’s just taking off.

4- What do you think is the “state of search” at the moment, is the industry doing well?

The Search Marketing industry is becoming more mature. What began as a rag tag team of SEOs more than a decade ago, has become a robust force in the marketing and business communities around the world. SEO, SEM/PPC, SMM, Mobile Search, Local Search, CRO, AND CRM are distinct specialties within the Online Marketing industry. Universities are beginning to offer programs in Search Marketing, not just adding a chapter on Internet Marketing to traditional programs. Enterprise marketers and SMB owners alike now know the term “SEO”.

That said, there is still a lot of work to be done. Many people still believe that SEO is sleight of hand or underhanded tactics that lead to a poor experience on the web for users, and potentially disastrous banning of the website in question. Charlatans still sell ‘[snake oil’ and scams. Sharing our knowledge, spreading information about best practices to as many business owners and marketers as possible, developing a strong community of honorable providers, and standards in terminology, metrics, and expectations is still today’s work.

All in all, I am pleased with the progress of the development of the industry of Search Marketing, its integration into the suite of traditional marketing tools, and it’s global spread. With a lot of hard work and sharing of our knowledge, we’ll see even better progress in the coming year.